Slimes

Most slimes can be identified by their jagged-edged, misshapen appearance and oozing movements, as well as their attraction to breads and fruits. They can even be briefly subdued by pure sugar, which can make it seem as though they have been glued to the ground as they suck it from the grass and dirt. On the other hand, they are usually repelled by strong liquor. Most slimes are differentiated by their color and the bits floating throughout their mass, as these tend to be adapted to and from their environment, respectively.

Like this but the size of a person

The most well known variety are rot slimes, sickly greenish brown with bones and flecks of meat floating within, residing deep in abandoned crypts and ancient sewers. They are known for the way they clash with adventurers, though for most humans they will likely never see one. One of their signature abilities is the way they 'spit' poisonous spray at living creatures. A few who have encountered them will tell of their predilection for rotting meat, and how one can resist their poison more easily if drunk.

Somewhat more of a pressing danger for average folk are rivers slimes, which make their homes on the banks of clear rivers, as one might expect. They are light blue and full of smooth stones but tend to blend in with the flowing water, hiding in wait of animals approaching to drink. Of little threat unless of course, one was simply out washing clothes or fetching water, in places they inhabit people know to keep a pouch of sugar or a jar of syrup with them to distract any slime they might face.

Perhaps more common than river slimes, but much less often encountered, are the vaporous cloud slimes. Their forms usually appear fluffy, despite their sticky, corrosive nature. They are unique in that they float high in the sky nearly all of the time, especially around storms as they await a lightning strike. They feed off of birds and lightning, retaining a charge for many days after being struck as they slowly absorb the energy from it.

Cloud Slime by Me, using Deep Dream

More of an actual danger to society, swamp slimes have deep green bodies covered in hairy algae, with flecks of rusty ore suspended within. They are a danger to bog miners, often attracted to campfires or torches and approaching silently until suddenly a poor worker finds themselves being eaten. Nearly all who go into the bog in search of iron go with a pouch of sugar and a pouch of lye (or at the very least a bar of cheap soap), just in case.

Deep underground are molten, red hot blobs thought to be a type of magma slime. Little is known about them as they are hardly ever encountered by humans, but they exist closer to the surface near volcanoes, and some say they tend to carry gems and metals within their scalding mass.

Lava Slime by Richard Bogmar

There is tell of a great honey pool that once existed in the Great Hive. One day the honey itself heaved and sloughed up out of the pool, attacking workers and drones until it was finally stopped by an apian hero using a weapon blessed with lightning. Needless to say the honey pool was no longer considered safe, and the bees no longer keep honey in this way.

Slimes are of course mindless, but on very rare occasions one will accidentally consume a source of magic, be it a brittle artifact, magic scroll, or particularly careless wizard, and become itself infused with magical charge. For some reason yet unknown, this rearranges the thing's body into a cubic, crystalline structure that is nonetheless still gelatinous, with motes of misty light swimming within. Alchemists are eager for the flesh of these, and will pay well for it, though they demand it be completely unsullied by dirt or detritus.

Gelatinous Cube by Jose Oliva

Each round roll 1d6 for the slime's pseudopodia shape:

1. Polypodial: many medium-sized extrusions which the body flows into and between.
2. Monopodial: one large extrusion that the body shifts into.
3. Lobose: small bumpy reaches that overlap and absorb each other.
4. Conical: broad, medium extrusions that expand in an almost fractal pattern.
5. Reticulose: branching, unnervingly similar to tree branches.
6. Actinopods: spikes that jut out and expand horizontally.

Slime Saviors

Late in the night, a small but finely-specialized slime creature slips into the mouth of a party member. It is a mild parasite, which causes compulsions. It carries the knowledge of the slime queen's eggs that were stolen and are in the town of Vergum, and a request that the party recover them.

The target makes a will save when they awake. If they fail, life feels pointless and dreary unless they are actively working toward saving the eggs, and they will gain no exp until the eggs are back in the queen's care. On a success, the target knows of the eggs and the slime's plight, and will know of the desperation of the queen.

Vergum is a minor town most notable for its beekeepers and honey exports. Lately the town has had a growing problem of monstrous slime, attacking a few beehives and consuming the honey. Luckily for them, very recently a lazy baker named Dentch returned to town with a sack of delicious slime eggs, after setting out in the night. He claimed to have journeyed into the lair of the slime and slayed them all, capturing the eggs for a feast. When the party arrives in town, preparations for the feast are underway.

If Dentch is interrogated, he will admit that he snuck into the slime nest wearing a cloak soaked in vinegar to mask his scent, and stole the eggs while the slime were resting. He will insist that they should be dead, because he threw powdered lye and fled as soon as they begun to stir.

When the party brings the eggs back to the slime queen, she can grant them one of two specialized slime organisms. One can replace a missing limb, acting in that limb's place with the additional ability of being able to stretch up to five meters outside of combat. The other can restore one wound each week, so long as it is fed at least one ration per day or about a rabbit's worth of living flesh.

The eggs are actually tiny slime creatures, too small to even move. If they are fed enough, they can quite quickly grow large enough to make their own way back to the nest, which will cause quite a commotion in the small town.